Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Racism

Author Ayn Rand thinks that racism, used in a positive or negative way, is evil and it is beginning to be applied to every race. In "Racism," she talks about how racists are usually unintelligent, unaccomplished men who are looking for "tribal self-esteem" (128). Rand brings up the example of slavery in the United States and how bad feelings of the past have resulted in a new form of racism. She states that because of the poor treatment of Negroes by the white people in the past, ancestors of those African-American slaves feel the right to have superior treatment in society today. Rand believes that it is unfair to treat to people of separate races differently in any sense because they are not responsible for their innate characteristics or the actions of their ancestors.

I found this piece to be very confusing and hard to read, but the author made some good points. Some of her points seemed like they were kind of random and didn't have very much support. For example, I didn't understand the part about the economy and businessmen on page 131. I also had trouble understanding the liberal and conservative viewpoints on racism, but I think these views have changed greatly over the past 50 years. Another part of this piece I was confused about was the fact that she didn't want the Civil Rights Bill to be passed. My interpretation of this is either that she doesn't want it to be passed because she feels it is discriminating against white people to limit their individual rights or she doesn't think the government should be able to control of something that is someone's own opinions.